


czagrat

by stover



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Medieval influences, Peacetime VLD, Political Alliances, Politics, Pre-War VLD, Young!Lotor, young!Allura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 04:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: “To care for your people is indeed the role of the ruler, but securing your demesne holds a much higher demand. You cannot protect if you cannot rule, and you cannot rule if you cannot protect.”Emperor Zarkon introduces a young Allura to the Prince of the Galra Empire for the first time.





	czagrat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alixiecivet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alixiecivet/gifts).



> Prompt: _"if you are still taking requests: perhaps a glimpse into Allura's past, maybe meeting Lotor for the first time? (not in any shipping context; I've just been curious lately as to how that may have gone, since Alfor and Zarkon were once friends?) Like an observation piece from either of their perspective. Or just any kind of insight into Allura from her childhood or teen years."_

Amidst the wild chorus of kiyaps and dry thuds of bodies falling to the floor of the training grounds, Allura heard the voice of her father.

“Come, Allura. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Startled, Allura failed to realize the weapon of the soldier she was sparring against. It took her by surprise; the spear in the soldier’s hand grew sharper, longer. Its reach was enough to nearly graze the side of her face. She flinched instinctively, even if she knew he wouldn’t dare, for it was treasonous to spill royal blood.

She flinched, yes; but she did not freeze. Her next movements were quick, and careful.

She turned swiftly on the heel of her left foot, her body like the wind as it blew outward and away from the in-coming soldier. She struck with her hand to grasp his spear, then cut the soldier’s gait with a sharp kick at his ankles. The soldier collapsed to the floor with a startled cry.

“Good girl,” she heard someone say. It was not her father.

She turned and saw first her father, and second the royal crown of the Galra. He was a tall, stately man, with a voice like the roll of thunder before a storm. His energy was a stark contrast to that of her father’s; while her father was a man full of bursting energy, like the light and force from a blast of a supernova, the Emperor was a solemn figure, his quiet energy brimming with all the strength and power from the universe.

She bowed low, giving all respects to her father’s closest friend and her people’s most loyal ally, and gave her greeting in the Galra tongue. _“Altea czagrat, Ympir Zarkon.”_

The usually stoic Emperor was pleased. “You speak like your mother’s sister. The Galra accent is not so well adapted to the sounds produced by the Altean tongue. Your efforts have shown their worth.”

Pride seeped a rosy pink into her face. She casts her eyes down, fighting to stay modest in the way of the court. “Your majesty is too kind. It is the Empress to whom you should deliver your compliments. She has taken much of her own time to give me lessons.”

“Her interest in you was a good investment. The Empress has a good hand in securing ties, especially amongst her own people. Certainly, being now of both worlds has strengthened that hand. A notable advantage, wouldn’t you say, Alfor?”

Allura sensed a shift in conversation, though she couldn’t tells what was to come. She worried the soft flesh of her lip, careful not to show the old habit too prominently, and kept her gaze low.

“Securing ties is a fickle practice,” she heard her father speak. There was a frown in his voice, and she chanced a quick look. Her father looked mildly concerned, brow creased slightly. “The heart plays a game high in gain but higher still in risk.”

“So does the crown,” said the Emperor. “Both fields upon which you and I have lay siege to many a time — and won, my friend. And speaking of such conquests,” the Emperor turned off to the side and gestured out with a hand. “Look there — here comes my son.”

Allura felt her lungs still, her breath left to ghost around her fluttering heart. She was no stranger to her many roles in the court—the Princess, daughter to the ruling King and Queen; the Consul, her people’s emissary to far-off sovereign lands; and, lastly, the Heiress, next in line to rule over her father’s dominion. And as the heiress, she certainly wasn’t shy of her fair share of suitors. Rather, adding unfortunately to her father’s headache, she was often a contemptuous respondent for she knew that her mother, the Queen, who had been promised to many in her own childhood, had rough encounters before being chosen at last to wed her father.

From the handmaidens, she learned that her mother in youth was foul-mouthed and quick to anger, distasteful of the notion that she were to be given to another without a chance to confer. Though the years had not been very kind to her mother, her father was. With time, her mother came to look fondly upon him—enough to acquiesce to the arrangement of marriage that she’d fought harshly against. But the happy case of her parents, she knew, was rare. There was no place for love in the court.

Soft footsteps stirred into her thoughts, laying them to rest. Allura turned now to the Emperor’s outstretched arm, warm and inviting, and prepared herself to see whom she would be expected to wed. Of courtly ways, she had seen and heard of many, making her apt to believe she knew of all that she would encounter. But it was this very confidence that betrayed her, for nothing in the world could have prepared her for staring into the soft-fleshed face of a child.

Lotor, garbed in the royal finery of the Galra elite, had the long, lustrous hair of silver like his mother and the sharp, angled features of his father. He was a handsome boy, lips supple and thin, curving gentle in a smile upon a face with cheeks as smooth as the rich cream spilled into her bath at evening time.

The Emperor placed a hand on the shoulder of his son, his large hand swallowing the tiny figure of the young boy. “I bid you to welcome my firstborn,” he spoke, “Prince Lotor.”

Her father, smiling radiantly and full of adoration for such a young, tender life, bent down to greet him. “Hello, little prince. How old are you?”

“Six and a half.” The child furrowed his small brows. “And you? Aren’t you too old to rule, now? You are much older than Father.”

The Emperor closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, hand squeezing gently over his son’s shoulder. But her father only threw his head back and laughed.

“A Prince, indeed! You’ve got a lot on your hands now, don’t you, my friend?”

The Emperor feigned displeasure. “More than you know,” said he, with the slightest look of teasing in his eye.

The young boy seemed either not to notice his father’s gentle tease or cared not for the remark, for the young prince fixed his gaze now upon her. He looked up at her face for quite some time, saying nothing at all. She wondered if it was perhaps because he was gauging her, as all royals do upon meeting for the first time. But this was a child of five, she reminded herself, a child who thought her father was an old man.

She gave the young prince a curtsy and smiled radiantly for him. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Prince Lotor.”

Her greeting seemed to have had no impact, for she remained smiling as she did with all members of the court until her cheeks felt stiff and weary, but there was no requisite response from the boy.

Just when she was to drop her smile, the young prince finally curled up the corners of his mouth, the expression as smooth and well-practiced as her own. “You have lovely eyes, Princess,” spoke the prince at last. “I hope they never change.”

The strange return of greeting left Allura hesitant to reply.

Sensing this, the Emperor drew his son back with a restless sigh. “Forgive him,” he apologized, “He’s not had exposure to the court beyond the Empire. We are a frank people.”

Her father chuckled and waved a hand. “You have nothing to apologize for,” said he, a wicked grin spreading across his face, “It was not your child who threatened to desex the guards of the Empire while climbing down the side of the pavilion with tarnish rope and baskets of kitchen scraps.”

Allura flushed hotly. “Father!” she cried in betrayal, and looked immediately to the Emperor to see his face. To her great relief, the Emperor was hardly offended. Rather, he looked at her with intrigue.

“I had rid Antyak of his shield for opening the gates to the peasant-born, but to know now that it was your daughter…” The Emperor looked at her now with a stern gaze. “To care for your people is indeed the role of the ruler, but securing your demesne holds a much higher demand. You cannot protect if you cannot rule, and you cannot rule if you cannot protect.”

It was quite expected of the Galra to believe so, but Allura dared not say this aloud. Not even her father would dare whisper any critique of the Empire’s rule beyond closed doors. Instead, Allura put on a pensive look, pursed her lips, and nodded slowly. “I see that there is still much to learn about wearing the crown.”

The Emperor seemed satisfied with her response. “You’ll be ready in time. And if you become even half the ruler your father is, then you’ll be a fine Queen.” He turned to her father, who had been quietly observing her with quite the look of ease. “Come, Alfor, Voltron is needed. There’s been some conflict amongst the Ganderbrites not even Blaytz can settle alone.”

“If the cause of concern is frozen, then I see no reason to rush.”

“...For all our sakes, I sincerely hope that was your idea of a joke.”

The two paladins made haste to Altea’s strongest castle-ship, where the lions slumbered in their chambers. Allura stared after the back of two great rulers with pride and envy, her gaze lingering on the back of the Emperor, whom she knew himself to be kind, but often wondered how far from the cusp of cruelty the Empire would measure. There were stories about the Galra; a fierce-some race they were, according to the whispers in the hall leading to her chambers. But to their enemies, the stories of her people were spoken in a like manner.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder—how far would a man go to protect his rule in order to protect his people?

“You don’t like how my Father rules.”

Startled, Allura turned to look at the young prince, a word of ignorance ready at her tongue. But the sleek, knowing smile pinching at the corners of the young boy’s mouth made her falter. When the boy next spoke, it sent a cold shiver snaking down her back, leading pinpricks of ice down her limbs.

“It’s alright. I don’t either.”


End file.
